Tag: Holy Church

REFORMATION HOPE IN CHRIST

Martin Luther, the great evangelical catholic theologian and Sixteenth Century reformer of the Church, lived in a time of colossal challenges and hardships. In addition to the many troubles Martin Luther experienced due to his efforts to increase Biblical literacy, promote Christian revival, and reform the entrenched corruption of the Church of Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, Martin and Katie his wife also lost two of their six children (probably due to the plague) during their life together: first their infant daughter (Elizabeth Luther) died at only 7 months old, and then years later their teenage daughter (Magdalena Luther) died at 13 years old. Moreover, Europe was under constant attack by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and there was populist unrest and revolt all over the place.

Martin Luther lived in extremely uncertain times, and it’s very unlikely in the year 1523 that Luther could have foreseen with any amount of certainty how all of his work would ultimately turn out. In that early Sixteenth Century timeframe (a pivotal time of immense transition from the Late Medieval era to the Renaissance era), Martin Luther’s evangelical catholic reformation of the Church was not a steady and glorious march of gospel revival and spiritual restoration. Indeed, it was never smooth going. Rather, it was messy, and it had its share of radicalism and extremism. However, one thing was for sure, it was quite clear that something a lot bigger than one person, a lot bigger than even the great Martin Luther, was taking place.

Furthermore, all of this socio-political and religious turmoil wasn’t happening in a technological vacuum. For it was a time of new technologies such as the printing press. It was a time in which an innovator who was a mathematician, astronomer and Church canon lawyer, named Nicolaus Copernicus, published his great scientific work that kicked Planet Earth out of the center of the Solar System. It was also a time in which the map of the globe was growing increasingly extensive and detailed, being charted by the expanding empires of Portugal and Spain.

What new kind of world was emerging out of all this? Which aspects of all this great change were good and righteous and constructive? Which aspects of all this change were destructive, unrighteous and demonic? How was God’s Holy Spirit calling, gathering and enlightening his Church for such times as this?

Today, 500 years on from Martin Luther in 1523, in this Year of our Lord 2023, we the modern-day Church of Jesus Christ find ourselves living through a similarly pivotal time of colossal challenges. We are still trying to help our youth climb out of the developmental stagnation they endured resulting from the unprecedented “stay at home” directives, requiring them to do school and learn, to build relationships and develop life skills, all from their bedroom desks on laptops and tablets. And sadly, we are still contending with old radical ideologies that have been repackaged for our digital era, causing great harm in their wake.

Additionally, the tried and true principles of life and liberty, of family and faith, and so on, are all under tremendous pressure. New technologies and discoveries are wiring us up and plugging us in (whether we like it or not) for both good and ill. Our technology can be used to keep us informed and connected, but this technology is also used to keep us propagandized and contained.

So yes, something new is emerging, and the world is changing at a lightning pace. But the question always remains: Which changes are good and Godly, healthy and constructive, and which changes are not?

I believe God is still calling and shaping us, his Holy Church, to be faithful witnesses within the world that is presently emerging, no matter what the cost to us might be. We just need to be enlightened and shaped by God’s grace and truth, first and foremost, and to be ready and willing to answer God’s call.

Forever secure in God who is “our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1) we can be bold in our witness of the good news of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. For as Jesus declares to his disciples of all times and places, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

LIVING WATER

As Springtime has sprung and as we’ve continued to receive over-abundant precipitation this year, my April church article is focused on the subject of the “Living Water” of God. So I’m orienting my reflections on the Gospel of John reading that we had a few Sundays ago (John 4:5-42), which is concerning God’s Living Water. I’m doing this especially because this Living Water passage of Holy Scripture contains some of the most central, essential and vital themes of the good news of Jesus Christ…

Chapter 4 of John describes a time when Jesus visited the region of Samaria, which was a despised place to the Jewish People of that time, because the Samaritans were considered by the Jews as ritually unacceptable and impure. Basically, Samaria was a place that all Jews (including Jesus and his disciples) were expected to steer well clear of. Samaria was designated as a “bad place” populated by those spiritually defiled and despised Samaritans, because the Samaritans did not worship God at the Temple of Zion in the City of Jerusalem but rather at their own Temple of Gerizim near the City of Shechem. Consequently, with the Jews centering their worship on the Temple of Zion in Jerusalem and the Samaritans centering their worship on the Temple of Gerizim near Shechem, both Jews and Samaritans condemned each other as being unfaithful expressions of the ancient Israelite religious faith and spiritual life. Despite the fact that they both worshiped the same Almighty God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they condemned one another over these differences.

Nevertheless, even though Jesus could have avoided Samaria, our Lord Jesus intentionally traveled through it. And that’s just how our Lord and Savior was when he walked this Earth during his mortal ministry among us. He often took a sledgehammer to the various ethnic, religious and cultural barriers and taboos, in order to seek and save the lost as the Great Physician of all humanity. So this is the reason the Samaritan woman in John 4 says to Jesus, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For as it also says, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” In fact, for a proper First Century Jew to share a drink from a common cup with a Samaritan would have been viewed as cavorting with the enemy!

In addition to this, it was also expected that men and women were forbidden to converse with one another outside of their family clan — let alone a Jewish man and a Samaritan woman.  However, our Lord Jesus, in stark contrast to both Hebrew and Pagan societies of the time, modeled for us a harmonious balance between the two halves of humanity (between both male and female). Just as Jesus treated both non-Jews and his fellow Jews alike, he also treated both women and men as equal in value and dignity as children of God even though we’re different sides of the same human coin.

Furthermore, at high noon when the heat of the Middle Eastern day was beginning to peak, Jesus meets this Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well to ask her if he could have some water to drink. And if you recall from the Old Testament, Jacob met his wife Rachel at the well, and Moses met his wife Zipporah at a well too. So Jesus meeting this woman at the well should spark us to think about marriage, especially in the context of Jesus inviting this woman to become a part of his Holy Church. In other words, this is a kind of spiritual romance playing out in John 4, because Jesus invited this woman to faith! He invited her to become a part of the New Covenant “Bride of Christ” (that is, his community of believers and followers, called the Church of Jesus Christ).

Therefore, Jesus asks her about her husband, and he reveals that he knows everything about her five marriages and how she was currently with someone who wasn’t her husband. Of course, he knew everything about her past, just as he knows everything about my past and your past. He knows our whole history, including the skeletons in our closets. And by revealing his miraculous foreknowledge to the Samaritan woman, Jesus revealed that he’s more than merely a pious Jewish man, and even much more than a Prophet of God. Jesus was revealing to her that he is the Divine Universal Messiah, God’s Living Water flowing from the Heavenly Fountain of Almighty God.

Like a stream or river, Christ our Lord is the pure, fresh, ever-flowing Living Water that eternally quenches our deepest spiritual thirst. For we are all thirsty for that which our soul cannot find anywhere else! So how thirsty are you? How thirsty are you for the deep, permanent satisfaction that simply cannot be found from anything else in this impermanent and ultimately unsatisfactory world?

The Only One to satisfy this thirst is the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus), who leads us to “worship in spirit and truth” (as it says in John 4), so that wherever we find ourselves, and everywhere we gather together in his name, becomes for us a Holy Gerizim and a Holy Zion. For Jesus is the One and Only answer to our hunger and thirst for fulfillment and peace. He is our infinite grace within this fallen and sinful world, and he is our more-than-enough within this not-enough mortal existence — he’s our “spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (as it says). And every Sunday, at our weekly spiritual watering-hole that we call worship, our Lord Jesus is with us in spirit and truth, in Word and Sacrament, offering to us Living Water for our spiritually parched hearts, minds and souls.

Almighty and Eternal God, on our own, apart from you, we have no true hope, no permanent refreshment, no everlasting fulfillment. Bring us to drink from your wellspring fountain of spirit and grace and truth which ever-flows to us through Christ Jesus our Savior, by the power of your Holy Spirit.  O Holy Trinity, we pray in your triune name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Blessed Holy Week & Happy Easter!!!  Pastor Tim

AN ECUMENICAL PEOPLE OF GOD

While staying with our son, daughter-in-law and grandkids this past August, we were able to see many of our national shrines and memorials in Washington DC and the surrounding area. We were blessed to be able to visit the giant obelisk monument to the Father of our Country, George Washington, at the National Mall area. We also visited Mount Vernon, George Washington’s beloved home in Alexandria VA, of which he famously said, “I’d rather be at Mount Vernon with a friend or two about me, than to be attended at the Seat of Government by the Officers of State and the Representatives of every Power in Europe.” We were also able to see the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, the Smithsonian Museum of American History (which displays the actual Star-Spangled Banner of our national anthem), and the Smithsonian Museum of Air & Space. In addition, we visited the US Naval Academy and harbor area of Annapolis MD, and we saw Fort McHenry (of Star-Spangled banner fame) in Baltimore.

As we traveled around these amazing historical sites, one thing I took note of was the fact that our national founding (although imperfect) was deeply rooted in biblical faith. However, our Founders made sure that our establishment was nonsectarian. While they repeatedly appealed to God in our founding documents (speaking of our “Creator” and our “Lord”), and while they regularly addressed God in our founding traditions (Congressional prayer, oaths of office, and so on), they also made sure that there would be no establishment of a state-run religious denomination. Therefore, I observed during our trip a clear Judeo-Christian rootedness on display at all of our national shrines and memorials, but this was accompanied by a clear interdenominational, nonsectarian and ecumenical emphasis according to the clear direction of our Founders.

By the way, the word “ecumenical” (oikoumene in Greek) literally means “the whole inhabitable earth” — but it refers to the concept that the entire Christian Church of all its various denominations should work together to develop closer relationships and to promote Christian unity according to the biblical High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in John, chapter 17, verses 20-26.

So all of this stuff got me thinking about our ecumenical relations right here where we live as Mt. Olive Lutheran Church. I think of Via De Cristo (VDC), the spiritual retreat ministry our congregation participates in. While it’s mostly a retreat ministry involving Lutherans, rooted in the covenantal and sacramental theology of the Lutheran branch of Christianity, VDC also draws in people from many different denominations of our Lord’s Holy Church. I also think about the Lift Up Crescenta Valley ecumenical association we are a part of, as well as all the various ecumenical partnerships we support like the Bailey Human Care Center.

Like the ark of the Prophet Noah and the fishing boat of the Apostle Peter, all the denominations of the Christian Faith constitute the holy life raft for all believers and followers of Jesus Christ in a world deluged with the floodwaters of hopelessness and spiritual death. In fact, the Christian ecumenical movement is often symbolized by a boat, representing that all the people of all the denominations of the Church of Jesus Christ are in the same spiritual boat together.

So essentially, the various branches of the Christian Church are UNITED IN THE ESSENTIALS of our Christian Faith: 1) Jesus of Nazareth was and is more than a man, even much more than a prophet or priest or king, 2) Jesus is the only-begotten divine Son of God, 3) Jesus freely gave of himself in sacrificial love to be the once-and-for-all-time offering of atonement for our sins, 4) Jesus was crucified, was dead, was buried, then he rose from the grave and ascended into heaven, 5) Jesus is our Lord and Savior, 6) We proclaim the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life by the blood of Jesus, and 7) We do good works of lovingkindness and service in the name of Jesus. However, we also have DIVERSITY IN THE NON-ESSENTIALS of our Christian Life: that is, diversity of denominational practices related to sacraments, ordination, worship, piety, organizational structures, etc.

Therefore, as the various branches of the Christian Church have diversity in the non-essentials but unity in the essentials, we should also have CHARITY IN ALL THINGS. We can have a joyful and charitable spirit with one another as we agree to disagree regarding the non-essentials, because we share together in the all-surpassing seven Christian essentials I listed above.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:22-23)

Together in Christ,  Pastor Tim